Monday 30 March 2009

10 Worst Trends In Heavy Music Today


1. Deathcore
I am still befuddled as to why most bands labelling themselves as 'deathcore' think it is both creative and clever to write music that consists solely of 200BPM blastbeats commonly followed by either a 40BPM open chord chugga-chugga breakdown or an excessive sweep-picking interlude (possibly broken up by a few pinch harmonics). Yes, we know that your guitarist can shred and that your drummer can gravity blast at obscene tempos but this doesn't mean you can write a song. Being dynamic does not just mean throwing a breakdown between blastbeats, so go buy yourselves a copy of 'Calculating Infinity' and learn how to write some proper technical tunes.
Bands to avoid: Whitechapel, Winds of Plague, Suicide Silence


2. Avenged Sevenfold
If there is a worse looking and sounding band than Avenged Sevenfold in music today I have yet to discover them (the closest I have come so far is Atreyu). Looking like Motley Crue in this day and age is not cool, neither is sounding like Linkin Park mating with Van Halen and having ridiculous stage names like 'Sinister Gates' has never been (nor will ever be) cool. In fact if Avenged Sevenfold were to suddenly begin dressing like GWAR and play only Nickleback covers my opinion of them would increase a thousandfold.
Bands to avoid: Avenged Sevenfold (duh)


3. Screamo/Electronica
Admittedly I can't claim to despise all the bands currently flying this particular genre amalgamation flag on their respective Myspace pages but when it comes to eclectically mixed genres like this the electronica component is simply not an excuse for crap screamo and boring breakdowns. Screamo/electronica is like pancakes and bacon; sometimes the bacon is nice and crispy and the pancakes nice and fluffy (hello Enter Shikari) and othertimes the bacon is flaccid and flavourless and the pancakes are soggy and taste like balls (hello Horse The Band). Unfortunately this genre is overrun by pancakes that taste like balls and thus I am forced to include it on this list.
Bands to avoid: Horse The Band, skyeatsairplane


4. Excessively slow breakdowns
The same kind of kids that get excited about sludgy snails pace breakdowns are the same kind of kids that go to shows to get 'br00tal' in their Bring Me The Horizon t-shirts, get Hungry Jacks after and stick Coke cans in their stretcher holes until their mothers come and pick them up at 10:30. Not that I have a huge problem with these kids, but they will eventually get the idea into their heads to begin compiling lists of their 'totes fav most brootal deathcore breakdowns eva!' and begin posting these compilations on YouTube (accompanied by extremely amateur Powerpoint presentations featuring photos of circle pits), sparking comment from all their Myspace friends who are ordered to watch these pieces of art via spam bulletins with deceptive, hype-inducing headlines (eg. 'OLI SYKES is totes GAY!). These comments will then lead to a kid with the word 'RAWWWWRRR' in their username getting 'paid out' by another kid with the word 'BBLAAARRRGGGG' in their username because they don't know who The Faceless are and Mr RAWWWWRRR will quite publicly (again via Myspace bulletin) announce that he has begun cutting himself regularly and will eventually off himself entirely. And this is not on.
Bands to avoid: With Blood Comes Cleansing, Annotations Of An Autopsy, As Blood Runs Black


5. Gangsta fashion sense
Whilst I'm not a huge fan of cliche' hardcore fashion (black Macbeths, black cut-offs, Comeback Kid t-shirt, fluoro coloured cap with the brim turned up) I am much less a fan of the gangsta dress style that has emerged from the current 'straight-up' hardcore scene. It seems to me that as soon as you put on a baggy white shirt, flat brim Afends cap and get an X tattooed somewhere on your body you automatically begin thinking that everyone is talking smack about you (and your hood) and that your 'Straight Edge Pride' needs to be defended at every possible occasion (insert instance of four dudes with beards in said white shirts beating the crap out of one 16 year old kid in a Cradle Of Filth shirt because he was drinking a UDL outside a gig).
Bands to avoid: Deez Nutz, Bury Your Dead, Stick To Your Guns, Comeback Kid


6. Feedback as 'art'
As with excessively slow breakdowns, music masked by fierce bursts of feedback is a fairly poor excuse for songwriting and is NOT art. I don't care how many pseudo-Christian poems, images of Gothic statues or artfully-blurred live photos you put in your lyric booklet I won't change my mind. References to the fact that you are 'making music for the sake of music and you just want to make music for people like you and not be famous' won't change my mind either. If you want to make music for the sake of music keep it in your backyard shed so your Mum can tell you to shut up at 7pm every night and you can go sulk in your room and reassure yourself that you are a very misunderstood artist.
Bands to avoid: The Chariot


7. Songs that begin with a breakdown
A hardcore song starting with a breakdown is the equivalent of a gangster rap song starting with a ruff-riding beat constructed of gunshot samples. A hardcore song starting with a breakdown is like a U2 concert starting with Bono giving a speech about starving African children. A hardcore song starting with a breakdown is like a 70's horror movie starting with a teenage couple having sex and then being killed by a masked madman when one of them goes outside to investigate a noise. For a genre that is supposed to be all about passion you would think that artists would care enough about their songs to at least try and write a vaguely original start to a song.
Bands to avoid: Johnny Truant, August Burns Red, Unearth


8. Pig squeals
Who the hell decided that it would be a good idea to substitute already hard to distinguish lyrics in death metal songs for actual animal noises? Will we soon be hearing other barnyard noises in place of actual singing (or growling, whichever way you look at it)? If you're going to pig squeal instead of write lyrics why not get an actual pig to perform vocals for your band instead of you? These are the questions that perpetually plague me when I hear bands like Job For A Cowboy so if someone could pass these on to them that'd be really great.
Bands to avoid: Job For A Cowboy, All Shall Perish, Cannibal Corpse


9. Songs with ridiculously inane names
When I first listened to 'Plagues' by DWP, I was honestly expecting the first track to contain lyrics describing the adventures of some 'Goats on A Boat'. I was quite disappointed when I found the song to be some rambling crap about 'searching for security in tragedy' but I had hope for the rest of the album. Sadly I was just as disappointed with the rest of the songs as I was with the opening track. To collate my disappointments; I did not find out why I shouldn't forget Number Three; pondered exactly why HTML Rulez Dood; wondered who this John was and why I had forgotten his name; got obnoxious when I was told not to Dink and Drance; attempted to spell Crap Without a C (and failed miserably); was confused about what This Song Is Called; felt weird meeting Reptar King Of The Ozone; submitted to the Scorpion Deathlock and discovered That Nickels Is (actually) Money Too and wondered why a user of Australian currency would ever give a crap.
Bands to avoid: The Devil Wears Prada, A Day To Remember


10. Band merch with maritime artwork
Whilst pirates are the rockstars of the ocean (and land) it doesn't mean your cool because you include them in your t-shirt designs. You are not a pirate by association. At least Bring Me The Horizon have a piratey name and vaguely piratey songs ('I Used To Make Out With Medusa') but bands like As I Lay Dying have no excuse for trying to cash in on pirate coolness. Maybe if you were called As I Lay Drowning (In Davey Jones' Locker) I might not have a problem with you putting an anchor and/or a shark on all of your shirts. There are so many different things you could possibly have on a metal shirt that haven't been done yet (ie. I have yet to see a Telletubbie with a chainsaw) and would be 'totz brOOtal' (the Telletubbie again) that bands should really start using their thinking hats and putting some creative stuff on their t-shirts. I mean, deathmetal is pretty much a joke anyways and Cannibal Corpse can get away with actually calling an album 'Kill' so why can't All Shall Perish put a friggin' Telletubbie with a chainsaw on one of their t-shirts?
Bands to avoid: As I Lay Dying, Parkway Drive, Bring Me The Horizon (etc etc etc)

8 comments:

  1. this is so horrible stop bashing on bands when they've done more than you ever will in your life! go die somewhere emo kid!

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  2. Lol.
    Or you could maybe listen to better music rather than defending crap like Devil Wears Prada.
    I do believe people like you are the reason that a blog like this is necessary.

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  3. What the FUCK is wrong
    With this blog!
    I personally think that
    NOTHING can go wrong with Cannibal Corpse
    Go suck an ass**** or
    Something :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dude, what have you done in a band thats so great?

    Who said a certain genre had to be a same set structure with such and such in it no matter what, continuously?
    It's called breaking the barriers to sound different, otherwise, it'd seem like we'd all be listening to the same song ove and over again.
    millions of people like to listen to something different

    I understand, this is just an opionion of mine, and maybe i am not correct.
    actually, i know im not correct because its my OPINION.
    and so is yours.
    Theres no right or wrong.

    Just stop ratting on bands and just listen to what you like dude.
    I hope me, wasting 3 minutes of my life writing this, will help you to not waste your life writing giant articles about YOUR opinion on "the 10 worst trends of heavy music".

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  5. ahah I actually like what Danny boy over here is sayin. Fucking music should be original & not fucking trendy or what's "cool" or "in" don't get me wrong my boyfriend loves deathcore & what not but this genre & there bands lack originality. Most sound the same & I can't understand there lyrics & its just a mesh of squels & an abundance of breakdowns. & most fans make no damn sense to me & it attracts a lot of posers

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  6. I have listened to most these bands for years now, and i highly disagree with this blog.

    Sure, some songs lack originality and are pretty basic, but they still sound good. I listen to old STYG, Bury Your Dead, WOP, Whitechapel, etc etc. And I still throughly enjoy listening to it.

    and if your comparing these bands to Calculating Infinity aka The Dillinger Escape Plan, then you really have no sense in writing music. I would MUCH rather listen to the chugga-chugga breakdown blastbeat then screaming fags with random noises, which sounds like a shitty cover band of C.U.N.T

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  7. man you are dumb theres no point in arguing with you are clearly mentally retarded

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  8. Horse is a much better band than Shikari. The article is pretty much spot on in all other respects.

    ReplyDelete